Top Row: Photographer Beatrice Neumann shot most of the gorgeous women featured in this issue of Inked, and many would say that’s her specialty (her work is featured in Taschen’s The New Erotic Photography). Neumann, who was born and raised in Germany, has numerous tattoos, including a back piece by Berlin’s Slim D and a neck tattoo by California artist Jeremiah Barba.

What the hell happened with Guns N’ Roses? There are probably five sides to the story, but the one we care most about is of course Slash’s (page 44). I’m still a little confused about what went down, but does it really matter? These days, Slash is tearin’ it up with Velvet Revolver, and at 42 he can say he’s recorded with everyone from Alice Cooper and Sammy Hagar to Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder.

"Melanie Fisers of Mantis Tattoo, in Pittsburgh, did all my tattoos. My first was a drawing by Brandon Boyd on my hip. I get shit all the time for having a tattoo that has to do with Incubus, but I don't regret it. Besides, people love my other tattoos, especially the circuit board on my back.

Cambodian rock is not a term one hears often when describing a band's sound, but the term applies perfectly to Dengue Fever, the '60s-psych, surf-lounge, world-music outfit from Los Angeles. Venus on Earth marks the band's third full-length album, and it follows the release of the popular Escape from Dragon House. Their notable eclectic sound is still there, courtesy of four American musicians and Cambodian lead singer Chhom Nimol, who often sings in her native Khmer. As Dengue's first attempt at an album that contains only original music, the 11 tracks smoothly transition from moonshine bebop to drugged-out garage jams to jet-setter swing without even breaking a

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Die! Die! Die! Promises, Promises

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Forget computer-generated beats and dance-club anthems; sometimes you just want hard, derivative rock. New Zealand's Die! Die! Die! are going to give it to you, whether you like it or not. Promises, Promises, the band's second full-length album is a pummeling, emphatic version of what will no doubt garner references to the '80s Dunedin sound. But, make no mistake, these boys from down under slash through any pop diddy ever written by The Clean. Produced by Kiwi songwriter Shayne Carter and recorded in the Walkmen's famed Marcata studio in upstate New York, Promises is well-primed and well-grounded enough to turn any rhythm into pure, vulgar

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Estelle Shine

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that's where it all happened; the young and bright-eyed Estelle marched right up and introduced herself to Kanye West, who hooked her up with John Legend. Fast-forward several years and she's the first artist signed to Legend's Homeschool Records, marking her U.S. debut, and even being touted as the next Lauryn Hill. It's easy to see why Shine is getting so much attention; with backing and production by established hit-makers such as Wyclef Jean and will.¡.am, and guests such as West, Legend, and Cee-Lo, there is little room for error. But this British singersongwriter-rapper does more than fine on her own with a blend of finesse and

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Foxy Brown Brooklyn’s Don Diva

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Everyone's favorite inmate is back on the attack with her first new album in six years. Brooklyn’s Don Diva, a collection of songs Foxy recorded before being sentenced to prison, is a brazen diary of everything that's happened to Miss Brown in the past few years: assaults on manicurists, court appearances, losing and then regaining her hearing, and, just for kicks, some troubled childhood recounts. The diva stomps and spits her way through explicit gutter anthems and incessant gloating proving the only thing more angry and frightening than a scorned woman is a scorned woman in solitary confinement.

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Hot Chip Made in the Dark

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Brit-pop electro band Hot Chip counts Made in the Dark as their first album recorded in a studio, not a room or basement. Yet the overall sound of this (their third) album retains a sound that is more concrete and drywall than studio padding. After the brilliant success of 2006’s The Warning, the ambitious blokes decided they would take their sound away from the computer and focus more on instrumentation, going for something more “rock-y." The 13-track album will certainly surprise Chip fans with its heavy Sabbath-like metal mixed and somber soul ballads, but no worries, there's still the sonically dense, ball-bearing dance anthems that they do so darn well.

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Xiu Xiu Women As Lovers

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Xiu Xiu's sixth album release is not the tense, glooming sound that you've come to expect from the experimental Oakland, CA, band; but that doesn't mean it comes anywhere close to an easy, accessible listen. The looming feedback, pick-heavy guitars, and repressed emotions are all still there, along with front man Jamie Stewart's malign whispers. Women as Lovers borrows its title from a novel by Nobel Prize-winning feminist writer Elfriede Jelinek, whose work is often dismissed as pornography (which happens to suit Xiu Xiu quite well). With songs like “In Lust You Can Hear the Axe Fall," and guest vocals by the bawdy Michael Gira (The Angles of Light), Women as Lovers is downright naughty.

Bartender William Crane, of Magnetic Field, in Brooklyn, shares his favorite drinks made with flavored vodka.

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Van Gogh Pineapple Vodka

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Absolut Citron

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Van Gogh Double Espresso vodka

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Stoli Vanil

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If the drink you order says something about you, then what exactly does flavored vodka say? Plenty would argue it says, “I don't appreciate the rich, storied history of this spirit, so I'll take the inauthentic, artificially flavored version."

Bob Dob has worked as a freelance commercial artist for such clients as Aflac, American Airlines, and ABC Family Channel, while building a solid rep as a fine artist showing in galleries coast to coast. A fixture in his paintings, Lueys (his name for these minions of the devil) are out to stir up trouble wherever they can. They're available participating in three kinds of questionable behavior: smoking, drinking, or waving a gun around.

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Gama-Go

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Upper Playground Walrus

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ningyoushi.com Artist Greg “Craola" Slmklns transforms Upper Playground's walrus character into this extraordinary vinyl figure, which will be limited to 500 pieces. The ultra-creepy 7-inch rendition of the walrus incorporates a sophisticated top hat and stitched bunny hand puppet that could induce nightmares in the slow kids. Think Dr. Jekyll meets Captain Kangaroo. Awesome!

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Gama-Go

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Deathbot Wooden Toy, Suit Version

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Gama-Go brings its popular Tim Blskup-deslgned Deathbot character to life as a cool limited edition (400 pieces), 5.5-inch wooden toy. It's nice to see the company taking it back to wood, when just about everything else these days comes in rotocast vinyl. Deathbot features a powerful stance with bendy arms, legs, and neck—perfect for terrorizing your other figures.

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Gama-Go

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Fatima Vinyl Figure, Bird Hair Edition

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Pay close attention: This is the last version of Sam Flores' Fatima figure you're going to see, and only 275 pieces are being released. If you missed out the first time, don't sleep on getting this one. The way Sam's gallery shows have been going, this will be a collectors' item from day one. The Bird Hair edition comes in two colorways and looks like the most detailed version yet.

Platform: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Show that special someone you care this Valentine's Day by shoving a shock rifle or flak cannon up his or her wazoo, then lovingly pulling the trigger. Letting sci-fi gunmen rampage solo or connect for furious on-foot or vehicular online scraps, this futuristic splat-'em-up truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Rocking sick visuals, even for a mile-a-minute shooter, and offering finely balanced matches that allow you to slaughter friends using tanks and robotic walkers, what's not to adore? Apart from, naturally, the mockery you'll suffer when a buddy's errant shot leaves you a crimson stain on the wall.

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Midway

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Devil May Cry 4

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Platform: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Should you choose only one heady cocktail of demon-slaying swordsmanship and gunplay this winter, make sure it's this Japanese import, which sees pretty boys Nero and Dante making sashimi of unholy beasts. Joining an arsenal that includes a revolver named Blue Rose and a blade called Red Queen (plus a script full of black humor) is the “Devil Bringer" arm. Use the supernaturally powered limb to smack enemies before finishing them with epic combos. Notable for melodrama and furious melees, this is sure to be the goth's new best friend.

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Midway

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Burnout Paradise

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Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 If you're into vehicle porn—and given the stunning, photorealistic crashes gaming's most violent racing franchise is renowned for, who isn't?—better pack extra lube (Jiffy, natch) before squeezing behind the wheel of this stunning open-world adventure. Offering hundreds of hood-crumpling challenges that can be tackled at leisure, you'll be riding extra-dirty in Burnout Paradise's new stunt-driven or knockout events. Play for the nut-shriveling near misses and vicious pileups, stay for the seamless multiplayer options, and definitely compete with the USB camera option that records the crushed look on your opponents’ faces when you beat them.

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Midway

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Turning Point: Fall of Liberty

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Platform: PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 Talk about revisionist history: In this game, Winston Churchill croaked early, and the Nazis invaded America. In response, you'll use combat shotgun or bolt-action rifle to prevent an atomic holocaust and bullet-riddle the goosesteppers at familiar landmarks like the White House. Despite introducing several novel mechanics, such as face-to-face melee kills and action sequences where you leap between rooftops, this World War ll-themed first-person blaster is a mite too familiar. Sadly, generic stage designs (Find the switch? How original!), brain-dead adversaries, and hokey voice-acting make the otherwise well-crafted tour of duty not quite worth your enlistment.

Eric Foss has me worried. I'm waiting at his bar, and he's texted me, “B thr shortly." But that was nearly an hour ago. After multiple e-mail attempts, we're finally scheduled to talk about Lit Lounge and Fuse Gallery, the bar-gallery combo he opened with his business partner David Schwartz in 2002.

The Toyota Prius hybrid might do it for Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz in Hollywood, but it's not going to fly with the wide array of Americans, from NFL players to PTA members, looking for something bigger and badder. And that's the riddle of the alternative-fuel auto marketplace: we are not a one-size-fits-all culture—as the tattoo community knows quite well.

There are thousands of reason to visit Milan (the food, the art, the women, to name just a few), but the reason to visit now is the Milan Tattoo Convention, which takes place February 8 through 10. For the 13th annual convention, planners are expecting some of the world's best artists.

What does it take to be a flash in the pan? Apparently, a combo of the right drugs, locker room references to genitals, and blatant pride about things that common sense would tell you to keep quiet. And Paris Hilton never hurts. Right now, I'm on the phone with Dirt Nasty and Andre Legacy, two thirds of the Los Angeles-based, white shock rappers Dyslexic Speedreaders, which also includes Mickey Avalon.

Sitting down with artist Tara McPherson you're likely to get a lesson in physics these days: “When you take a super bright object, like a quasar, and place it in front of a massive object, it creates the illusion of four identical objects surrounding the original.

Siri Garber, founder of Platform Public Relations in Los Angeles, has a groovy voice—a raspy, powerful one that probably makes some of her male clients think about pleasure, rather than business, when she picks up the phone. But this celebrity publicist's throaty purr isn't a result of barking orders.

By 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon in Stanton Social's kitchen on New York City's Lower East Side, there's a muted roar of polyglot jabber punctuated with the staccato clang of pots and pans. The restaurant's team of chefs and line cooks are readying themselves for the onslaught ahead: 3,000 plates will be passed through the service window before quitting time.

Some people seem to have a natural talent for ending up in interesting situations. Charis Burrett, of Silver Star fashion and lifestyle company, is one of these people. After graduating with a jewelry design degree from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, she decided that life held more possibilities for her and she headed out to become a Playboy model.

With his Velvet Revolver success, Slash has proved the naysayers wrong, but we’re still wondering what the hell happened with Guns N’ Roses. Here, the guitarist takes us behind the scenes and shares the stories of his iconic ink.

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Jason Buhrmester

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BACK WHEN THE SCRAGGLY MEMBERS OF GUNS N’ ROSES stumbled from the gutter and laid waste to the Sunset strip, no one expected the volatile band to last, and everyone expected their live-fast-and-die guitarist Slash to drop dead. G N' R did implode nine years after Appetite for Destruction, but everyone was wrong about Slash.

What makes the following 13 cities so charmed?They’re all home to drinking holes that get the Inked stamp of approval. Here, 39 spots where we’ll throw one (or more) back—in no particular order, because we don’t like ranking things.

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LAS VEGAS

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LOS ANGELES

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ATLANTA

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SAN FRANCISCO

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AUSTIN

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PHILADELPHIA

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CHICAGO

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PORTLAND

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WASHINGTON,D.C.

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TWIN CITIES

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MIAMI

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DETROIT

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NEW YORK CITY

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PHILIP MCCLUSKEY

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Nothing makes a strange town feel more like home than a great bar. It gives you a sense of the city, a feel for the locals, and—perhaps, most importantly—it can supply a nice buzz. The problem in many cases is picking the right spot.

“Is this it? Is this it?” asks a pink-skinned vacationer in a sequined tank top as she shakes a flabby arm frantically in the air. Next to her, a younger version of Ms. Pink-Skin presses her nose to the glass window of 305 Ink, leaving a streak of sunblock under the “No food, no drinks, no kids!" sign.

"Please note that I am a one-man operation so I am not always able to get back to people as quickly as I would like." This is the apologetic ending to the voice mail greeting of Cherry Bomb's sole artist and operator, Patrick Cornolo, who has had to deal with a lot of big changes this year.

When Tomato Tattoo owner Robert Hixon set out to name his shop, he jokingly suggested an unusual moniker to his girlfriend. "In our history, tomato is symbolic of love," he says. "So I threw it out there and the more we thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense."

Opening up a shop in Chicago's Little Italy wasn't easy for Keith Underwood. In fact, the Taylor Street owner has become almost as famous for the battle he faced trying to get his business open as he has for his art. "You can't just rent and open here," says Underwood of his difficulties.

"I would rather be here, than anywhere else," says Chicago Tattoo Company's shop manager and artist Nick Colella. "I don't care what kind of shit goes down, as long as I am in a tattoo shop." He adds, with a chuckle, "I'm lucky that I have a wife that understands that."

On December 7, Inborn tattoo shop, in New York City’s Lower East Side, hosted a reception in honor of its group art show. The lively crowd sipped beers and showed off their ink as they admired the work of artists Ray Jerez, Alicia Thacker, Nik Moore, Margaret Robs, and others.

On December 1, New York City’s Jonathan Levine Gallery hosted the opening reception for “The Streets of Europe," a show featuring the work of street artists Blek Le Rat, Blu, Bo130, D*Face, Microbo, and Space Invader. The show continued the gallery's series on international street art, which began in February 2007 with “Ruas De São Paulo: A Survey of Brazilian Street Art."

Hand of Glory Tattoo is located in Brooklyn, New York. Since the shop opened its doors five years ago, the artists have been tattooing all styles, with an emphasis on traditional Americana, neo-traditional, and Japanese designs. The sketchbook pages show here are just a small sample of works by artists Craig Rodriguez, Jeff P., Josh Egnew,and Paul Bosch.